Personal Reaper
by Marquise de Nile
Summary: Bound by death, parted by life—that was their destiny. Canon/Supernatural AU. [For MadaSaku Weekend 2019]


Story written for MadaSaku Weekend 2019

Prompts: "You belong to me." + Things Whispered in the Dark

Summary: Bound by death, parted by life—that was their destiny. Canon/Supernatural AU.

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**Personal Reaper**

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The Uchiha clan traditionally took pride in their visual prowess, but even among them, Madara's ability went above and beyond. The depth and scope of his perception was unparalleled as he didn't rely only on his eyes. He used his whole body to see, engaged all the senses, while his nimble mind worked out insights to matters of society and politics. But even before he awakened his prized Sharingan, he'd seen glimpses of other things which couldn't be easily comprehended.

The first time he saw something that defied common sense, he was five and he fell into a river as he escaped Senju warriors. He hadn't learnt to swim yet and his chakra control wasn't good enough to climb onto the surface. The strong current carried him away, then pulled him under. Madara struggled in futility, kicking and flailing wildly, but he lost his strength quickly. The water rushed into his lungs, drowning him. Before he passed out, his last thought was that his father would be so disappointed in him. What an embarrassing way to die for a shinobi.

The darkness lasted only for a short time and the next moment he knew, he was laying on his side on the shore like a drowned rat and hacking his lungs up. After he expelled all the river water from his airways, he slumped down in exhaustion, hard stones digging into his cheek. If the Senju pursued, he'd be easy pickings, but he couldn't move even if he wanted to. Wracked by shivers and pitiful, Madara allowed his eyelids to drift down.

A pair of sandaled feet appeared in the corner of his blurry vision.

_So they found me… _he thought in resignation, reaching with a shaky hand to his belt for a spare kunai. It wouldn't be such a shame to die here if he at least nailed one of the bastards by surprise. Father would then forgive him for his failure to survive.

He fumbled with the blade and cut his finger on the sharp edge before dropping it. "Dammit…" he whispered, certain the Senju would now kill him at his leisure and it would be slow and painful. At five, Madara knew exactly what they did to enemy kids they seized. He heard what happened to cousin Roku who was seven when they got to him.

The feet moved closer and the person squatted in front of him. Madara stared, gobsmacked.

A young girl his age, dressed in a red kimono and with the most unbelievable hair colour of cherry blossoms, was looking at him blankly.

"You're not a Senju…" Madara stated stupidly. "Who are you?" he asked with suspicion. She lacked any kind of shinobi gear marking her as a civilian, but appearances could be deceiving. There was a technique to change one's appearance into someone else after all.

The girl didn't answer. Her dead-like green eyes unsettled him. They were too bright and too still, unlike any other person's he knew.

"Are you mute? Why are you here?" Madara questioned, getting louder. "Answer me!" he cried out in frustration when she stayed silent as a grave and just as unmoved.

The girl looked at him without a change of expression, then she raised a finger to her lips. Madara looked at her in confusion, then he heard twigs snapping under heavy steps and voices coming closer. _The Senju! _He realized as his heart jumped into his throat.

He turned to the girl in appraisal. She warned him to stay quiet, but it didn't guarantee their safety.

"Go," he whispered. "If they find me, they will kill me, but you're not a ninja. Run before they come."

The girl's look changed to that of a slight surprise, then she shook her head. Madara wanted to yell at her, but he had to limit himself to leveling her with his best menacing glare and hissing at her to go.

She promptly ignored him.

_A stupid civilian!_ He groused internally as he grabbed for his kunai again. Holding it tight, Madara painfully heaved himself up onto his elbows, then on his knees. On all fours, he closed his eyes, gathering strength, and stood up.

The girl wasn't there anymore.

Madara blinked only once, then he felt dizzy and passed out again.

The Senju didn't find him in the end, his father with a squad intercepted and drove them off before rescuing him. When he woke up again, he asked about the girl, but no one had seen her around that place by the river. Madara was convinced that he must have dreamed her up. The cut on his hand could have been acquired any time during his drowning episode or the fight before.

He forgot all about the bizarre pink-haired girl… until he saw her again.

As an adolescent, Madara grew like a weed. Since he'd gotten a reach to match adult shinobi, he started participating in frontline fighting. He was in the middle of a battle, his blade in a bind against the enemy's, straining his arm to overpower the man and gritting his teeth in determination, when he caught a flash of pink out of the corner of his eye.

With a grunt, Madara broke out of the bind and stabbed his opponent, then looked around the battlefield frantically. Did he really see that?

"Nii-san! Look out!" Izuna yelled. Madara turned around, his Sharingan whirling and tracking the trajectory of the arrow, but he was too late to dodge it completely. The point pierced his shoulder, instead of the heart.

Without thinking, Madara raised his arms, sped through the hand seals and sent a Grand Fireball back at the unfortunate archer. The man died screaming, engulfed by a flaming inferno.

Another look around confirmed that the battle was winding down and the remaining enemies were in retreat. Madara checked his wound, wiping the blood around it. It looked like nothing too important was hit.

He raised his eyes from the wound and the girl was standing there, a short distance ahead, looking straight at him with the same unblinking green eyes. She was older, but she still wore a kimono the same vivid shade of red. Her long pink hair was tied up in a bun and secured with a kanzashi. Madara frowned, all the sounds becoming muted in the background as he took her in. Everything about her presence on the battlefield seemed out of place—her pristine clothing without a speck of dust, her indifference to the violence around, and that unnatural stillness.

Just who was she and what was she doing there? Was she really the same girl he'd seen as a child? The more he thought about it, the less sense it made to him.

Madara took a step forward, determined to talk to her when a wave of lightheadedness slammed into him and almost knocked him off his feet. He stumbled, barely managing to keep himself upright.

"What…" he began, then his knees buckled under him and he fell down on them. His head was swimming.

He didn't catch how or when she came closer, but the girl was now standing before him. "Who…" he tried again, but speaking suddenly required too much effort. It felt as if he had a cotton ball stuffed in his mouth.

Without changing her stoic expression, the girl pointed at the arrow in his shoulder. Madara glanced at it and finally, finally noticed what should have been obvious.

The next moment, Izuna bounded to his side, putting Madara's uninjured arm around himself and supporting him. "Nii-san! Nii-san, what's wrong with you?" His brother's voice sounded like it came through water, not air.

"… poi…son…" Madara croaked out with the last of his strength and lost consciousness.

He didn't remember much from what happened after. They laid him down in the healer's hut and for three days and nights he teetered on the edge between life and death. Gripped by high fever, Madara was trapped in a labyrinth of nightmares and through it all, whenever he briefly escaped them, she was kneeling by his side, an unchanging constant that kept a silent vigil over him.

"Who are you? Are you a healer?" he asked frequently. She never answered.

Finally, there were panicked, angry voices around him, but he could barely lift his heavy eyelids. The darkness was encroaching onto his senses and in a moment of clarity he thought to himself: "Am I going to die?"

Then, the pink-haired girl was sitting next to him, looking more real than anything, and he latched on to the welcome sight of her, a splash of colour in the greying, blurred world.

"This is not your time," she told him softly, like a whisper on a breeze in the morning, and put a slim hand on his heated forehead, bringing him relief with her cool, soothing touch.

Thus comforted, Madara sighed and closed his eyes, trusting her implicitly.

Next time he woke, the fever passed and instead of the girl, he found Izuna kneeling by his side, chin touching his own chest as he napped. Madara awkwardly tried to sit up, but he was weak as a kitten and his arms couldn't hold him up. He collapsed back on the futon with a grunt.

"Nii-san! You're awake!" Izuna was also woken by his rustling. "How are you feeling?"

"Terrible," Madara replied hoarsely.

He had Izuna fill him in on the time he was out of it, fighting the deadly poison. The Uchiha were victorious in battle, their father had stayed the night, but he'd left soon after the fever had broken. He was needed to watch over the clan affairs again. Madara absorbed his brother's report, but something else was on his mind.

"Say, was there a girl here?" he asked carefully.

"A girl? Sure, there's Miyu, the healer's daughter."

That sounded promising. Although a name like Miyu didn't suit that strange girl, Madara was encouraged to keep asking.

"Does she have pink hair?"

"What, _pink_?" Izuna laughed, but it petered out when he noticed his brother's dark scowl. "Nii-san, what are you talking about? No one has pink hair," he said with concern.

Madara forced his face muscles to relax. "Right. I must have dreamt something weird."

Izuna looked at him strangely, so Madara changed the topic to food. His brother was easily persuaded to bring him soup and he took the moment to himself to think.

The girl was apparently a figment of his imagination. It was difficult to accept, now that she had finally spoken to him. He wanted to ask her so many things, but it would be pointless to talk to a made-up person. Madara sighed with disappointment.

Even if he kept an eye out for another flash of pink in the following battles, he wouldn't admit to it. However, his mind didn't conjure her again.

The fighting with the Senju clan grew fiercer and Madara found himself often pitted in battle against his former friend, Hashirama. Their power was evenly matched, but his opponent had an annoying ability to surprise him in ways that even the precognitive abilities of his Sharingan couldn't foresee. It might have had something to do with their time of skipping rocks and dreaming of peace but Madara refused to acknowledge that. Sentimentality had no place on the battlefield.

In the course of one such encounter, Madara used an ash technique to reduce visibility around them, hid in the cloud and sneaked behind Hashirama. He had a clean shot at him, but still he hesitated. Surely he wasn't cowardly enough to stab a warrior he respected in the back?

That moment of indecision gave Hashirama enough time to notice his presence. A branch shot out of the ground and wrapped around Madara's neck, lifting him up into the air. He kicked out uselessly as he struggled for breath while Hashirama looked at him impassively, hands steadily holding in the seal. Where was that sensitive kid Madara had known from before? Just how many others did Hashirama strangle with the same technique?

Dark spots started dancing in Madara's vision and it occurred to him that he was going to die by the hands of his former best friend. How ironic that this would be his end… after everything they had once talked about… peace…

Madara saw pink.

She was standing at his dangling feet, her lovely face, framed by loose pink locks, turned up to gaze at him with blank green eyes. No longer a girl, she bloomed into a woman in the time he hadn't seen her.

He reached out to her feebly. "You…" he got out one last word, brimming with confusion.

She shook her head. "This is not your time," she said.

It reassured him. If she said so, then it had to be true, after all she was…

Hashirama, who was right behind her, lost his unfeeling composure and looked at him with a dawning horror. But Madara was already falling, falling, falling into darkness…

He woke up alone on the ground, sore all around and with a badly bruised throat. He couldn't speak without pain. There was no trace of the woman or Hashirama. Madara sat up and punched the earth in frustration. He felt like he'd been on the edge of understanding something important, but he forgot it.

After that encounter, his thoughts strayed to the mysterious woman more often. Why couldn't he see her whenever he wanted? No matter how much he strained, she didn't appear, despite being a product of his own mind. It didn't escape him that every time he'd seen her, he was close to dying. Understandably, he wasn't going to replicate these circumstances just to test if he would see her again. If she was an angel sent from heavens to protect him from death, he didn't want to exploit her kindness.

Madara wondered what her name was. Should he give her one? He thought of her unique hair, pink as cherry blossoms in the spring. Sakura, he decided. That was her name. Simple, feminine, elegant—just like her.

Once, only once, driven mad by desperation he called upon her out loud. It was when Izuna, his last remaining brother who he'd promised to protect, was dying from a fatal wound.

"Sakura… please, if you hear me, save my brother. Save Izuna's life like you saved mine. Please…" Madara prayed earnestly late into the night, but she didn't come.

He wiped his tears and laughed bitterly, mocking his own naïve lunacy. What did he expect, asking for her help? A miracle? She wasn't even real!

Izuna gave him new eyes and a dying wish and when Madara rose from his knees, he was forever changed as a terrible power coursed through his veins. Power, only power was the means to getting anything in this world. And he wanted revenge.

He summoned the Perfect Susanoo and in his fury and grief, threw himself into battle with Hashirama. And despite all that power, he was soundly defeated. With the rage gone, he felt hollowed out and tired. After a test of his opponent's intentions, he agreed to the peace treaty between their clans. Realizing their old childhood dream became a way to fill that gnawing emptiness of purpose inside Madara's heart.

It was some time after founding the village and Hashirama was getting married to a bride from the distant Uzushio. Madara was too busy to bother finding out more about the whole affair.

"Will you get married too?" Hashirama asked unexpectedly one evening when they were drinking together.

Madara snorted. "Married? To whom?" Women were scared of him. Most of people were, these days. And frankly, he wasn't particularly interested in getting into this kind of a long-term commitment. Realistically, any marriage of his wouldn't end well.

"Come on, there must be at least one pretty maiden that caught your eye," Hashirama teased.

Without meaning to, Madara remembered that delicate shade of pink and the green eyes that still haunted him.

"A-ha! So there _is_ someone!" his friend crowed, noticing his prolonged pause.

Madara rolled his eyes. "No." He took another drink, then put his emptied cup down with a little too much force. "Don't ask stupid questions."

There was no one. She wasn't real.

The life went on for his best friend, he got married to Uzumaki Mito and became the village's First Hokage. Hashirama had everything—family, respect, power—and Madara was left behind in the dust, no longer needed by anyone for anything. So he turned to the ancient Uchiha tablet and found a new purpose, a new dream in the shadows. He left the village and learned the secrets of the forgotten myths. Then he returned to battle Hashirama one last time.

And the same man that had spared his life twice, cut him down without mercy on the third try.

Madara was fooled by a wood clone. He was too cocky, too convinced of his own final victory, but he couldn't even differentiate the chakra of a wood clone from Hashirama's own life energy.

Everything happened in a blink of an eye. She stepped out of the shadows, untouched by the rain, and almost at the same time Madara was stabbed in the back. His pupils widened in shock. Hashirama's blade was sticking out of the center of his chest, dripping with his blood and all he could think about was the irony. Apparently, his old friend didn't hesitate to abandon honour and useless sentimentality. Even in that regard Hashirama proved to be a better shinobi than him.

The woman he called Sakura approached him leisurely while he exchanged his final words with Hashirama. _If you're an angel, you're a really lousy one_, Madara thought to himself. She didn't even warn him in time.

There was no conceivable way on this earth to heal him from such a wound. He was going to die for certain this time. Madara accepted this truth with a stoic calm.

Because it was all a part of his calculations from the very start.

When Hashirama let go of his sword, Madara fell onto his knees, splashing the muddy water from the waterfall they had accidentally created in the course of their battle. The woman knelt in front of him.

"It's your time," she told him gently, her usually inexpressive eyes shining with compassion.

Madara gave his last warning to his vanquisher and let his tired eyes close. Then he fell limply into Sakura's embrace.

She was surprisingly warm and soft, making him feel welcome. Madara inhaled her sweet and pure scent—lilies—and relaxed. He was so comfortable in her hold that he could spend hours without moving from his spot.

It took a moment before it registered that she was solid under his touch. His eyes snapped open, his exhaustion gone in an instant.

The first thing he saw over her shoulder was himself, laying face down in the shallow flowing water, the sword sticking out of his back from a bloody wound. The other Madara definitely wasn't breathing.

Madara flung himself back from the woman. "What is this? What have you done to me?" he demanded sharply.

She folded her hands in her lap neatly. "I didn't do anything to you. Everything happened as it should have," she told him.

"I should be dead, but I'm not," Madara said, pointing at himself with a frustrated frown.

Sakura quirked an eyebrow. "But you are dead. That is your body." She gestured at the empty shell of him behind her. "You died and I received your soul in the afterlife. This is your first stop," she explained. Unfortunately, it created only more questions for him.

Madara stared at her critically. "Who are you, really? If you're not someone I imagined, are you an angel?"

She chuckled. "Angel? You flatter me. No, I'm not one of them. I'm only your reaper."

Reaper? "_You_ are a death god?" Madara asked incredulously. She looked nothing like one. She was just… too pink.

"No, I'm not a god," she refuted. "Death is my superior, that is correct. I am merely one of his many reapers, tasked with collecting souls in their time of dying and bringing them to their place in the afterlife."

Madara digested the information. "I thought you protected me… before," he said quietly.

"Whatever have given you that impression?" she asked with a confused tilt of her head.

"You said…" he trailed off. She was right, he had no proof she had helped him. He'd just… assumed. It was a wishful thinking. Now he felt stupid and he hated that.

"All I said was that it wasn't your time," she reminded him, not unkindly. She frowned. "Technically, I shouldn't have said anything to you before it was your time," she admitted. "We're not supposed to get attached," she added with a shrug.

Madara eyed her curiously with a hopeful thrumming in his chest. It seemed that the afterlife had rules and this woman broke one of them… for him. "Why did you talk to me then?" he asked.

"You're… a special case."

"Because I'm Indra's transmigrant."

Sakura startled, then sighed. "So you know… Yes, that's part of the reason."

"And the other part is?" he asked, leaning closer to her. She bit her lip and, for the first time ever, averted her eyes from him.

"I… couldn't help taking some interest in you, not when you just kept looking beyond the Veil and _remembering_ it. You have a very strong Sight."

More explanations that didn't explain anything. Madara sighed and looked around at the destructed landscape. At least in his spirit form he was just as impermeable to rain as she was. "What now?"

Sakura gracefully rose to her feet and extended her hand to him. "I need to take you to the heavenly court for judgement."

Madara crossed his arms. "I'm staying."

Her arm fell to her side and she exhaled softly before she bent down to his level and looked him straight in the eye.

"I understand you don't want to leave, but you can't stay, Madara," she said gently, cupping his cheek, her usually inexpressive green eyes shining with compassion that took his breath away. Inadvertently, he leaned into her touch. "Everyone would like to stay, everyone has something left unfinished in the mortal realm. It's hard and scary to let go of it, but it's for the best. You've done enough. You can rest now."

Madara let her soft voice wash over him and for just a short, blissful moment, he was ready to forget all about the village, Hashirama, tailed beasts and his plans. He _wanted_ to abandon this painful, imperfect reality where he was forever doomed to lose and move on to the afterlife of peace. But…

"I can't," he whispered. It took more out of him than he imagined.

"You must," she insisted. "Please, come with me. All your loved ones are waiting for you. I'll take you to them."

His heart clenched in pain. He still had the dead faces of his family etched behind his eyelids, he still remembered the betrayal and suffering, and the inherent injustice of this world he couldn't not stand to correct. His own corpse, pierced through the back, was laying right in front of him in the muddy water, abandoned like trash by a man he had once called his best friend.

Madara took her hand from his cheek and held it between his two palms. It was slim and smooth, unlike his big, calloused hands. "I have to stay here," he told her, voice tinged with regret.

She looked at him in concern. "If you refuse to move on, you will eventually turn into a ghost, chained to the earth and sentenced to haunting it until you slowly lose your soul bit by bit and nothing's left of you," she warned.

Madara took her in, her beauty, her kindness, her compassion, all directed at him. He swallowed the bile that was rising in his stomach because of what he was about to do. "Please," he asked thickly, lowering his eyelashes.

Sakura bit her lip as she mulled over her decision. "I suppose… letting you stay for a little while longer won't hurt anything. Some spirits watch over their loved ones for years before passing on. It's inadvisable, but not too dangerous."

"This won't take that long," Madara assured, squashing his guilt ruthlessly. "Thank you, Sakura," he added.

She raised an eyebrow. "Sakura?"

With acute embarrassment, Madara realized that he still didn't know her real name.

"I started calling you that because of your hair. It reminds me of cherry blossoms," he explained himself. "I didn't know what else to call you."

She touched her hair self-consciously. "Reapers don't have individual names. Death doesn't bother naming us as it's unnecessary to performing our duties," she told him in a distracted way, brushing her fingers through the long pink strands. "Sakura… It's a pretty name. I like it. I'm going to keep it," she decided with a nod to herself. She turned her gaze upon him, glittering with wonder, and smiled. "Thank you, Madara."

His throat tightened, so he only nodded lightly in return. Then, no longer able to face her, he turned away in pretense of surveying the barren surroundings again.

"What would you like to do first while you stay here?" she asked.

He spotted a familiar white-topped figure in a blue armour coming closer. Madara smirked viciously. Tobirama, so predictable.

"First," he began, "I want to see my funeral."

Sakura didn't argue, willing to follow him while he trailed after Tobirama carrying his corpse. Madara found that spirit form had advantages like moving at any speed he wanted, allowing him to effortlessly keep pace with the living. He could also go through walls at will.

Tobirama hid Madara's body in his laboratory's basement, then left. Probably to deal with the fallout of the battle. The village must have been in a right uproar, especially with Madara bringing in Kyuubi like a pet hound on a leash. Madara imagined the reactions to that were quite hilarious.

Sakura walked around, inspecting the dark basement. Tobirama had turned off the lights, but for the spirits it made no difference. They could see everything perfectly well.

"Madara, I don't think this guy is going to bury your body. Do you know who he is?" she asked with a frown.

"He's Senju Tobirama. He killed my brother Izuna and he's the younger brother of the man who killed me," Madara explained calmly.

"Then he's your enemy. What is he going to do with your body?"

"Probably cut it up and analyze," he said with a shrug.

She gave him a curious look. "It doesn't bother you?"

"Why would it?"

"Desecration of the body is often the cause of so much anger that some souls turn into vengeful ghosts."

Madara leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles nonchalantly. "Rest assured, nothing Tobirama can do would anger me." He'd once hated Tobirama, but he had left it behind in the past. Now all he felt for the man was indifference. That Senju wasn't worth the energy or effort that true hatred required.

After making a round through the basement, Sakura sat on a table for the lack of any other seating option.

"Now what?" she asked playfully.

"Now we wait," Madara replied.

"That should take a while," she remarked. She threw him a speculative glance.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Um… Will you… tell me about yourself?" she requested with an uncharacteristic shyness.

Madara furrowed his brow. "You don't already know everything about me?"

"How could I? I'm just a reaper. I only meet people when they die and they usually don't stay long. Or want to talk to me." She said it matter-of-fact, but there was an undertone of sadness. Was she… lonely? Madara considered her again, realizing that he could be the only company she'd ever had.

He pushed himself away from the wall and sat next to her on the table. "Alright. What would you like to know?"

She grinned excitedly. "Anything is fine. Maybe start with your likes and dislikes?"

"Like an introduction, eh?" he said wryly. "I can do that. I'm Uchiha Madara, I like my family, training and inarizushi. My hobby is falconry. I dislike morons, cowardly attacks from the back and the concept of losing. My dream is… the world of love, peace and winners. Hmm, what else?"

"Slow down!" Sakura said with a laugh. "I will need you to explain some of these things. Also, what if someone in your family was a moron? Would you like them or dislike them?"

That was an interesting question. Madara paused, working out the answer. "It's very unlikely that one of my family would be a moron, but if it happened I would help them get smarter," he said at length.

"Would you do it because you like your family or because you wouldn't like to have a moron in your family?" she pressed him for a real answer.

"… Both," he admitted ruefully.

She giggled. "That's honest of you. And harsh, but as long as you actually help them, your motivation shouldn't matter." She called him honest… Madara averted his eyes briefly. "Tell me more about your likes. What's inarizushi?"

He was all too happy to tell her about the wonders of his favourite dish. Then he told her of the excitement of a hunt with falcons, the beauty and majesty of a swooping bird of prey, the building of a bond between himself and his animal partner. After that, the topic moved to his childhood.

Sakura turned out to be a great listener and, before he knew it, he was spilling his guts to her. It was just so easy to tell her things he would hesitate sharing even with his closest friend. Sakura didn't judge, probably because she had no experience of life, and there was no worry she'd ever reveal his secrets to anyone else. Madara found himself opening up to her about his family. He told her of his mother's tales of princesses and tailed beasts, and that one time she took him to visit her childhood home at the shrine and how it was the first time he saw the sea, his father's patient teachings and sense of justice, the amusing stories about his brothers. Finally, he even spoke of Izuna's death, which was something he'd never discussed with anyone because of how deeply that wound in his heart went. But telling Sakura about it no longer hurt. Instead it brought him peace.

"When Izuna was dying… I called on you," Madara confessed. "I was desperate. There was no one else I could turn to."

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear your call," she said with regret. "Reapers only appear to those they come for. If I could, I would've come to you…"

"Did you come for Izuna's soul? Did he see you?" Questions tumbled out of him hopefully. "Did he say anything?"

Sakura shook her head. "No, I wasn't his reaper. Someone else took him across. But I promise," she put her hand over Madara's, "that he didn't disappear forever. Your brother is safe in the afterlife and he's waiting for you there. All you need is to move on and you will see him again. Just tell me when you're ready."

Madara didn't respond, only closed his eyes in acceptance. "Thank you," he said quietly. She didn't do anything, she knew nothing about Izuna, but a weight still lifted off his shoulders. "But I can't go. Not yet."

Sakura smiled and squeezed his hand lightly. "That's fine. I'll wait."

It had been three days since Tobirama had stolen Madara's body and hid it in his basement. No one had come in that time. Because of the lack of windows, Madara's spirit phased through the walls to check the time outside, then returned. He started pacing through the room like a caged panther and throwing impatient glances at his dead body.

"Is something the matter? Will there be a funeral?" Sakura asked, her eyes following his movement with worry.

"I doubt it," Madara replied. He turned to her abruptly. "If you knew of a way to get power that could change the world into a better place, would you use it?" he asked.

She was taken aback by the suddenness of this. "I don't know… Reapers are neutral. We can't interfere with the mortal world. It's up to the living and sometimes gods to change the world in any way."

Something like satisfaction lit up in his eyes at those words. "Yes, the living and gods…" Madara murmured to himself with a smirk.

Ill at ease, Sakura stood up. "What's all this about? Please, tell me."

Unbeknownst to them, the clock outside struck midnight.

The body on the table opened one eye. The Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan activated in it and released a technique stored inside. A chakra thread shot out of the body and connected it with Madara's soul.

"Madara! What's going on?!" Sakura cried out in alarm. He looked to her.

"I'm sorry, Sakura, but I won't be coming with you anytime soon. The world was done with me, but I'm not done with it yet. Until I bend it to my will, I won't move on to the afterlife. I'm going back."

"Madara, no! There's a constant flow in this universe that we must follow and death and the afterlife are a part of it. The fate can't be changed! That's why you need to stop this and come with me," she pleaded.

"Can't be changed? All the more reason to try." He smirked. "My dream is to sever the fate of this world. I'll achieve the world of peace and love, the world where the concepts of winning and losing don't exist."

"Stop! You don't know what this will cause!" She threw herself forward, but the chakra thread already pulled him back into his body.

Madara's eyes shot open as he drew breath with a loud gasp. He lost the vision in his right eye from the time-delayed Izanagi he had implanted in it, but it was all within his expectations. Pins and needles burned all over his body as his heart began to beat and pump blood again. For a moment, he simply breathed, amazed at how good it felt to just… live.

Slowly, he pushed himself up to sit. Everything hurt, his muscles screamed in pain from three days of total disuse. That's when he noticed the problem—his back and chest were in agony, blood gushing out again from the deadly wound in his center.

Sakura was standing right in front of him, pale and wraith-like, her hands clasped together. "Your time has passed. You belong to me. Accept it and come back," she urged. "Please."

Ignoring her, he shakily stood up and stumbled past her to the table, then threw up a piece of Hashirama's flesh he'd bitten off.

"Please, don't do this to me," she insisted from his side. "If you come back now, there will be no harm done."

Her pleading fell on deaf ears.

Madara saw the dormant chakra in the dead cells. He used a medical ninjutsu he'd copied to awake them to life, then grafted them onto his open wound. His chakra mixed with Hashirama's until the regenerative ability kicked in and his body knitted itself together before his very eyes.

He was healed and alive.

"You don't know what you've done," Sakura said, tears glistening in her eyes. She was fading fast now that he wasn't dying.

"I'm saving the world," he replied.

She shook her head sadly. "You deliberately broke the natural order. There will be punishment." Her form was turning transparent until she completely disappeared from his view. "Don't forget, you belong to me. I am waiting," her voice came in a whisper.

Madara stared at the empty spot she left behind. Even if there were consequences, he knew nothing about them. What would happen to him in the afterlife wasn't his concern and he was willing to risk it for his plans. Besides… would it really matter, when he became a god?

"Goodbye, Sakura," he whispered and absently rubbed over the center of his chest.

His body regenerated from that stab wound completely, so why did it feel as if there was still an aching hole ripped inside him?

He chose not to dwell anymore. Talking to Sakura purged him of all remaining insecurities and doubt. It reminded him why he set out on this path and fortified him to do what was necessary. He had a dream to achieve and no time to waste of his second life.

Years passed while Madara traveled the nations under various disguises, laying groundwork for his plan. He plotted, he manipulated, he extorted, but he never again came close to dying in battle. Hashirama was the only warrior that could ever match him. Whenever he saw cherry trees in bloom, he averted his gaze and moved away, ignoring the phantom ache.

Madara was starting to lose hope, when in his old age, the Rinnegan finally manifested. The plan could enter the next stage. He summoned the Gedo Mazo statue.

When his old, frail body fell over in exhaustion, Sakura manifested again. She looked the same as he remembered, but the red of her kimono and the pink of her hair seemed less vibrant. Only the green of her eyes stayed just as hypnotic as she looked grimly upon his wheezing form. Madara felt the acute pain in his chest and realized that he was going into a cardiac arrest.

She said nothing, but her lips pursed in displeasure while he hooked himself up to a chakra tree he'd cultivated from Hashirama's cells. When his condition stabilized, she disappeared again.

Thus began his twilight age.

With the Rinnegan in his possession, Madara finalized his preparations. He trained a successor that would carry his name (and wasn't it delightfully ironic that Obito was both his family and a moron, just like Sakura had once predicted a lifetime ago?). His end was nearing and with it, he kept seeing flashes of pink out of the corner of his eye.

Madara didn't wait for the end, instead he chose himself the moment he died. He ripped out the life support cords from his back, then his soul slipped out of the aged, useless body like a snake shedding skin.

"I'm back," he told Sakura. In his spirit form, he looked like in his prime again.

"I waited. Are you ready to move on?" she replied briskly.

He smirked. "Yes, but I won't stay long there anyway," he boasted cockily, confident in his next scheme to resurrect himself.

"I know. I saw everything." She crossed her arms with a troubled look, angling her body away from him.

The smirk fell off his face. "What do you mean?"

"I told you, there are grave consequences to what you did. After you passed the threshold, I couldn't leave you until I took you to the afterlife. I had to wait by your side all this time. Another reaper was created to take over my other assignments. I was replaced."

He didn't know what to say, so he stayed silent, taking in the exhausted shadows drawn on her pale face. Such a change in her immaculate, doll-like appearance was more than concerning.

Sakura heaved a deep sigh. "It doesn't matter anymore. All I need to do is to bring you to the afterlife and then it will all be over."

Madara put a hand on her shoulder and made her face him. "You're not telling me something. What is it?"

She tried to fake a smile. "It's my punishment… for failing in my duty. I let you return to the living world and Death doesn't take to fools kindly."

"Are you going to die?" Madara's eyebrows shot up.

"In a manner of speaking… We should get going," she replied.

She took his hand and tugged him. Madara felt himself slipping out of the reality, turning inside out between the dimensions. Then they landed on a lawn before the grandest palace he'd ever seen.

"This is the place of your judgement. You will need to go in alone," Sakura explained.

"You can't come?"

"No, reapers aren't allowed inside. We exist only in between the living world and the afterlife." Sakura took in a breath and looked at him. "Before you go… We won't see each other again, so… I want you to know that I'm not angry at you. I had years to think about it and… despite what you've done, I am grateful to you. I didn't realize how empty my existence was before I met you. You showed me what life really means. I can't be mad that you wanted it back." She gave him a luminous smile. "So… thank you. And good luck."

"Wait! What's going to happen to you?" He reached out, but she slipped from his grasp.

"My punishment."

She disappeared before his eyes for the last time.

.

Madara's resurrection plan hit a few snags before he managed to complete it. He reveled in having all his senses back, in feeling his blood pumping, pain assuring him that this was real. His memories of the afterlife were shrouded by a veil, but he was certain he had been punished there.

Then he saw a familiar flash of pink. She was there, dressed in shinobi gear, her hair cut to a shoulder length and green eyes unwavering.

Madara halted in shock. Was he close to dying again? But he was completely fine, he made sure of it. So why was Sakura here, on this battlefield, if not for him?

Then he realized he could sense her _chakra_.

He chuckled. Sakura was a mortal, stripped of her powers and reborn into this living hell. A fitting punishment for her transgression.

Madara smirked and took a defensive stance when she reared to attack him. _Show me what you've got, my little reaper. Let us dance until the end of time._

**.**

**The End**

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AN: Thanks for reading and Happy New Year! This story was inspired hugely by a song Personal Jesus (cover by Marylin Manson) and Supernatural TV show. I hope you enjoyed it. Please tell me how you liked it, I'd be very grateful :)

Until next time!


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